How I Realized You Can Like Individuals from Other Races and Still Be Racist

There is a really weird phenomenon I have become aware of in recent years that I will call Camouflaged Racism.

The Camouflaged Racist does not initially seem racist. He has friends that are from other races. He may very well love actors and artists from different races.

It is possible to be white and like Will Smith and still be racist.

He may even be married to a person from another race. And yet, this person still says things that are racist.

When I first started meeting Camouflaged Racists (CR), I was really confused by them. Usually my interactions with them would go something like this:

CR: “Very Racist-Sounding Remarks”.

Me: That is prejudice and racist.

CR: Nuh-uh because I have Black and Hispanic friends.

You can like Sophia Vergara and still be racist.

It seemed hard for me to maintain that my friend[1] was racist, given his apparent friendship with individuals from other races. And yet I was really troubled by his remarks.

Throughout the years, I began to realize that there are different kinds of racism that operate in different ways.

For example, some philosophers such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, as well as Anne E. Cudd and Leslie E. Jones[2] discuss the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic racism.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

If someone is an extrinsic racist, he believes that an entire race or ethnic group is inferior in every way, as a whole (and likely evil).[3] This is the kind of racism, I take it, that motivates genocides and holocausts of entire people groups.

Extrinsic racism, no doubt, still exists in the world, but I think it is much less prominent in contemporary society, perhaps because of progress in integration and civil rights, as well as multicultural education. (Although, certainly it seems like politics has really brought a lot of extrinsic racism to the fore recently.)

Intrinsic racism holds that different racial or ethnic groups possess genetically certain traits as an entire group that are inferior in some way.

So for instance, someone might really like an African-American movie star or have an African-American friend but still claim that African-Americans as a whole are lazy or intellectually inferior (as I have heard various CRs argue over the years).

You can like Oprah Winfrey and still be racist.

Or someone might be married to an immigrant from a particular country but claim that in general people from that particular country are weak or untalented or criminal.

This, I take it, is the kind of racism that motivated the President recently when he criticized accepting more immigrants from what he referred to as (his words) “shit-hole countries”.

He seemed to be implying that because these countries were (again, his words) “shit-holes” that all of the people coming from them possessed certain inferior qualities or traits and that the U.S. did not want them.

Intrinsic racism is sneaky because it makes it possible for people to like certain individuals of a particular race but to believe that the race as a whole is inferior in some aspect.

I also think that intrinsic racism makes it possible for people to consider all of the races as equal theoretically but automatically (and without actual evidence) to consider individuals from that race to be inferior in some way.

One of the most problematic things about intrinsic racism is that it tends to camouflage socially oppressive practices. Someone who is motivated by intrinsic racism can say kind things to people of other races while also doing things that oppress these groups.

So, for instance, I take it that the benevolent southern slave owner practiced intrinsic racism. There were many slave owners who never beat their slaves, who treated them like family, but who also never considered freeing their slaves a moral responsibility.

Frederick Douglass explains these issues well in his autobiography.

Often this was because these slave owners believed that African-Americans lacked intelligence or autonomy. So while they loved their slaves and valued their work and contribution to the family, the slave owners did not consider them fit to govern themselves.

The other danger of intrinsic racism is that it often conflates the results of social oppression with supposed inferior qualities of racial groups.

So, for example, someone motivated by intrinsic racism might see statistics that show that certain minority groups in the United States have higher imprisonment rates or higher school dropout rates and attribute this problem to the supposed inferior characteristics of a race, rather than carefully examining the historical and social factors that contribute to these problems.

Jonathan Kozol describes some of these issues well in his book.

Unfortunately, this type of logic is seductive to all of us because it is self-validating and requires no change on our part. It allows us to blame other people solely for their social problems, rather than working to understand and change the complex social pathologies that contribute to them.

I think that one of the most problematic aspects of intrinsic racism is that it allows us to hide our own areas of needed personal growth from ourselves and each other.

While there are some people who wear their racism proudly like a badge of honor, most of us know that racism is immoral, and we do not like to think of ourselves as racist in any way.

At the same time, it is a pretty normal human tendency to be threatened at least a little initially by people who are different from us.

You can like Denzel Washington and still be a racist.

Difference threatens us because it requires us to listen, to try to understand, and perhaps to change in some way.

It requires us to examine the ways in which we might be contributing to systems of oppression through our lack of awareness or our tendency to associate with people who look just like us.

For instance, in college, I became aware that my thinking patterns exhibited patterns of intrinsic racism. (I did not know what to call it at the time, but that is what it was.)

This was really troubling to me because I knew that racism was bad, and I did not want to have anything to do with it.

After struggling with my guilt over this, I realized that I made generalizations about entire racial groups the most when I was cut off from them (segregated, really).

For instance, I struggled with intrinsic racism the most when I was not close, personal friends with anyone from a particular racial group or when I did not read literature or watch movies produced by people in that racial group.

It is a lot easier to hold intrinsic racist beliefs when all you know about a group of people is the scary rumors you hear on the news or the unflattering stereotypes you see on TV shows.

As I consciously worked to befriend People of Color and to listen to their experiences and read literature and watch movies written by them, I realized that I struggled much less with intrinsic racism.

My job is to listen and love.

I think it is important to realize that most of us unconsciously pick up intrinsic racist beliefs along the way, especially when we are the majority group in a country. It is our moral responsibility to be aware of this and to work to overcome these beliefs.

In closing, I want to say that while intrinsic racism may seem more benign in some ways than extrinsic racism, this kind of racism is really prevalent, it is oppressive, and it is holding us back as a nation.

I also want to say that if you become aware of your own intrinsic racism or believe you might be a Camouflaged Racist, it is always possible to change. The most important thing is that you are willing and open to loving and listening to others, no matter their race, and that you are willing to relinquish these thinking patterns that can be tempting to hold onto.

Postscript: I am really excited that I get to teach a course on African-American philosophy this semester. I am including my reading list below, in case anyone is interested in reading these books, which can all be found on Amazon.

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Published by shellypruittjohnson

My name is Shelly Johnson, and I am a writer and philosopher with a PhD in philosophy from the University of Kentucky. One of my primary personal and philosophical interests is how we can learn to love ourselves and each other better in order to bring about positive change in the world. I teach ethics and education for social change at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. I am the author the blog "Love is Stronger". I am also the author of the book "Everyday Debate" recently published by Classical Academic Press.
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Ali: I really appreciate all of your kind comments and the time you took to write them! I know what you mean about little comments like “my little Indian friend”. I have heard comments like this a lot. It is shocking to realize at some point that comments like this are a form of racism and that many seemingly well-meaning, respectable people say things like this. I think more and more of us are becoming aware of how harmful comments like these are and are speaking out about it. That is a really good thing.